Racial Diversity In Modeling

[retailqueen]

People trying to minimise and downplay things ; nothing new...

Anywasy, I'm at the point where I don't care if Prada had a black model on he catwalk.
I love Jourdan, she's one of my favourites but lets be real she's a token.
A ot of people view Prada as an 'intellectual' brand whatver that means and black model (because they are black), don't or can't in their eyes be associated with the brand.

People don't want to talk about it, but many of us (who are honest with ourselves) can read between the lines.

What annoys me he most is that we should exress some type of joy or relief that Miuccia allowed a black model on her catwalk.

Umm too late. she already made her choice a while ago and she should stick with it.
does she really wants us to beleve she cares bwhat her black clientele feels?

Enough of my rambling, I'm done.

Lets go back to pretending that the pink elephant doesn't exists and that some posters are having a pity party cause we feel 'entitled' to have a black model at prada.

Carry on

 

[smartarse]

there's a different snooty meter between Ralph Lauren offices and Prada's.

... but that was a good point being a temp can factor in with how you were treated, too. again, i don't condone it.

 

[xPedro]

I see Prada as a great brand, that is always trying to inovate and to be different, and Prada is one of the few brands that can still make what we call fashion (IMO). About the casting, I think prada has a very restrict casting, and that's great IMO because it makes the brand look even more luxury and exclusive! I love Prada, and for Miuccia never disapoints me!

 

[scriptgirl]

The casting isn't good if it is racist

 

[xPedro]

The casting isn't good if it is racist

I don't think it's racist, if the model doesn't fit the collection the designer is not goiing to use this model, I think using a model just because she's black, not because she fits the collection, that's racism!

 

[J'ador-DioR]

^ I don't think anyone is supporting postive discrimination here. The issue is that Prada (and many other designers) simply do not consider black models regardless of whether they fit their image or not.

Agency wise, there are
3 black models at NY management (editorial)
1 at DNA
5 at IMG
1 at women

(It's who they are sending out too. Designers need girls to actually choose from.)
I mean if we're going to call prada "racist" then explain why I haven't seen a black model at BCBG, Vera Wang, ETC. It's who is at the agencies and above the two top agencies only have 1 black model. Maybe you should look towards agencies. And models.com is run by a black guy, maybe you should write to him.

Vera Wang and BCBG have used black models in their shows before and have also used them this season. In regards to agencies, they fill their shelfs with what sells so to speak. It's very hard to agents to promote black models and to a lesser extent...asian models. Some casting directors have mentioned in articles that they get a casting brief from designers which usually say "no ethnics"....the agencies are then forced not to send their girls...not sending their girls to castings means that they don't do shows which leads these girls not making any money for the agency & themselves. The majority give up or switch from agency to agency until they eventually realise that it's just not going to happen for them. Even the most successful black models are still underrated.

I've mentioned this before but the modelling dynamics within the industry have changed (for ethnic models, at least) as soon as Tom Ford left the scene. He broke out several great black/asian girls on to the industry (Liya, Ujjwala, Yasmin, Ai, Valerie Prince, Oluchi, Mimi Roche). Practically everyone has used these girls since then except Prada. Now things have changed for the worst. Has anyone else noticed that Karl Lagerfeld doesn't use black models anymore...at least for these past 4 years?. It's quite strange because he went from having 3/4 black models in his shows for Fendi/Chanel to having absolutely none at all currently. Weird!!.

 

[Gaultier_Bandit]

Chanel, Fendi, Chloe, Versace, Gucci should deffinately be added to the list. Some of the biggest Luxury companies...such a shame!! They have so much power to change how the world looks at beauty, yet they maintain to not include ethnic models! Especially black!

 

[L0VE]

Jourdan Dunn just walked for Prada.

 

[Fontenrose]

I will contribute some person's comment to Horyn's NYT blog, as he had some interesting points to make. I would love to see a rainbow of he*althy, exhuberant models on the runway, but it seems the trend is otherwise at the moment...

I’m perplexed by the discussion of race taking place here because the answer is so obvious. Just as Kielo and pbw said: whiteness is desirable, it sells, therefore you see a lot of it on the runway. You doubt it? Think about black or Latina women who wear green contacts, dye their hair blonde or straighten it. Why would such things be desirable? Because they’re signifiers of whiteness, of course.



And E.Frantz who reminisces about the good old days when runways were rainbows: what does it mean to you that black girls were chosen for the runway then, and white girls are chosen now? Is it that blackness was more acceptable in the 70s and has since become less acceptable? It isn’t.


Blackness was FETISHIZED in the 70s for its exoticism, and today whiteness is fetishized for its exclusivity. “Got something you can’t have…” It’s just like an expensive handbag, tantalizing and out of reach. The 70s were no more racially tolerant than the 2000s, they simply had a different set of priorities, namely the discovery of foreign (ie, non-Western) cultures and the commodification of those cultures.


Models are, in the eyes of the consumer, fetishized objects. Each characterisitc is chosen for its value as a component: height, thinness, face type, skin color. As charmingly multicultural and politically correct as it is to lament the lack of diversity of skin colors and body types in fashion, there is a REASON those characteristics are prevalent. Until what the demands of the market change, those characteristics will not change no matter how hard you wish for it.


Am I saying I don’t want to see black, Latina and Asian models? Actually, I don’t care. I accept what the zeitgeist brings me.


Also, it’s disgusting how people here perceive and categorize everyone with these ugly little categories. For example, why is it that no one wants to deconstruct the category of whiteness itself, or can’t you tell the difference between an Eastern European girl and an American-Irish one? Why is it that in the 90s, runways were flooded by dozens of Russian models? Don’t you think that points to a fetishization of Eastern Europe? Would anyone like to consider the significance of this? Or does the fact that they’re ‘white’ (but a very different kind of white from, for example, Anglo-Americans) remove them from the list of your concerns?


Finally, everyone’s talking about the ‘emerging markets’ as a justification for more runway diversity. Cathy wrote:
“But Zegna told me that nearly 20 percent of the company’s sales now come from the so-called emerging markets, like Brazil, Russia, China and parts of the Middle East, and that’s happened in just a matter of a few years. And the runways shouldn’t reflect that fact both in design and the casting of the models?”


Let’s break this down. Russia is a nearly all-white country. No call for black models to sell to Russians. China is, obviously, Chinese. There are some Chinese and Asian girls on the runways, but expect to see more. Brazil may be majority black/mulatto, but the majority of Brazilians wealthy enough to buy designer wares are of Portuguese, German or Italian extraction… and therefore, to all intents and purposes, white. Then there are the Arabs. I don’t recall seeing any Arab girls lately.



In short, the only place I see people with truly dark skin, ‘blacks’, buying high fashion is in the United States, Canada and the UK, and here they aren’t even much of the buying public (robert, I know you’re there… just making an argument with the statistics). In short, I think everyone’s rally around the idea of more black models is sort of silly, and more a reflection of American racial politics than any reality in the world outside the US.


Also, one more thing @brooksie. How ironic that you correct A. Neto about the size of the black population in the US, then blithely state that here Hispanics are a majority. You couldn’t be more wrong. The United States is 73% white.
— Posted by Anjo

 

[jjbunny79]

^ hey can u plz give me the post link? the comment does actually make sense (altough im only agree to a lil extent)

and dont forget many big designer in paris and milan are still grow up in country that is more homogenous and assimilation is more prevelant...

 

[Fontenrose]

Here is the link. There are lots of interesting comments.

http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/gucci-a-ticket-to-ride/#more-194

 

[jjbunny79]

^ thanks....

 

[rubydon]

I will contribute some person's comment to Horyn's NYT blog, as he had some interesting points to make. I would love to see a rainbow of he*althy, exhuberant models on the runway, but it seems the trend is otherwise at the moment...

thanks for sharing that blog comment, fontenrose. very thought-provoking.

 

[janznote]

I applaud Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne had several black models in her show this season and should be applauded for this. Kudos to you Vivienne.

 

[sethii]

^ You need to write the source of the images you post

 

[janznote]

The source was the model Sessilee. It's her personal pic that was taken with her digital camera.

 

[Couturierdiva]

I remember hearing/reading about this last year. I agree with her, and think it definitely needs to change. Maybe some will take a more active role in ensuring that more diverse faces (Black, Asian, Indian, etc.) are depicted on magazines and the catwalk!

 

[honeyisle]

i think this whole debate is just down to a question of taste.
why must people always look for someone to blame? that is when this turned into an issue...

No, racism has always been an issue. Maybe not for a white person (directly anyway) but for any person of color, it's always been there.

It's troubling to me that you can reduce it to a matter of "taste".

 

[nyc_art_style]

beauty is a matter of taste. but a person should not believe that only blue eyes and blonde hair is beautiful. people should have a wide variety of they consider beautiful.

 

[janznote]

Taste?

No, racism has always been an issue. Maybe not for a white person (directly anyway) but for any person of color, it's always been there.

It's troubling to me that you can reduce it to a matter of "taste".

It also troubles me that Acid thinks that racism in fashion is a matter of taste. I have been with Sessilee when she was told to "get out" of a casting line for fashion week in Milan because they weren't hiring any black girls! Black models are told time and time again that "Black girls don't work in Paris (or Milan); why are you here?" No exaggeration. (Which is odd to me because the trend for businessmen in Milan is to have a Black girlfriend on his arm).

Sessilee started in this business at the age of 12; and she was at first shocked by the whole racism thing since she had never experienced it before. I taught her to respond to the people who say that "black models don't work here" by modestly saying, "I Do! I work here all of the time."

It is very frustrating. I see times are starting to change now that more attention is on this problem. There use to be just one black girl allowed anywhere in fashion, and now there are a few girls getting attention and more than one to be seen in a show. Good for them. But honestly, less than a handful are making any real money. They rarely get the meat or the bones that the white girls get - only the gristle. Is that a matter of taste too? I am hoping that changes soon as well.